Missing persons searches are certainly not new to our society. In the past, sketches or black and white photographs of missing persons were posted in public places to enlist the public's awareness and aid. Such postings often bore crude likenesses of the individual sought and thus increased the chances that a mistaken identification be made or, worse yet, the subject under search not being identified at all. Multiple copies of the likeness, made for the purpose of increasing viewership, decreased the quality of the image even further. Broadening the geographical boundaries of a search required the likeness to be transported physically—a time-consuming endeavor.
As technology has advanced, other means have become available. Mass mailings, radio, television, and the Internet have played significant roles in disseminating information to the public about missing persons.
The power of the internet to disseminate information to the public, can also be one of its greatest weaknesses when considering how to store data for missing people searches. The media is replete with instances where information that is intended to be private in databases is hacked into, misappropriated and exploited.
Also, the information itself (photographs, fingerprints, DNA samples) must be gathered, transported, and converted to electronic format before it can be broadcast using advanced means, such as the Internet. Precious time is lost in this complex process. Also information is many times incomplete when gathered after the disappearance of the person.
Prior art in the field of missing person identification aids includes three basic products: a paper identification card, various identification bracelets, and identification cards containing biometric data.
On paper identification cards, static, two dimensional, black and white or color still photographs appear, along with a field of personal information and possibly a fingerprint. Examples include a student body card, or driver's license. Such a product does almost nothing to counter the dilemmas already described: paper information must be transported and converted to electronic format before it can be broadcast. Again, time and image quality are compromised.
Identification bracelets are commonly used in hospitals to prevent mistaken identification and, in the case of infants, kidnapping. There are also some parents who require their children to wear bracelets containing the child's name, phone number, and perhaps address. Such a bracelet is useful only if the child is lost and then found by a responsible and benevolent party. One such bracelet is taught by Kravitz et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,493. A kidnapper would likely dispose of the bracelet, rendering it useless in search efforts.
In recent years, an identification card that includes biometric information has been introduced. This product accomplishes two previously problematic objectives: authentication of the card itself, and verification that the holder of the card is truly the one it identifies. Both endeavors require the individual identified to be present. This is apparent in the following patents in this field: Bogosian, U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,272, Fishbine U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,403, Drexler U.S. Pat. No. 5,457,747.
March U.S. Pat. No. 6,034,605 describes a system for storing an individual's personal information for use and dissemination at a time the person goes missing or some other emergency situation arises. The identifying information is entered on a form which is then sealed in a secure package and marked with a unique identifying code. The sealed forms from all persons enrolled in the system are then stored in a centralized location for access and deployment only if someone possessing the identifying code requests access. At that time, a report is generated from the form (or from an electronic storage media which may be used in lieu of the form) and disseminated to the appropriate authorities. The problem with this system is that it requires the person who's information has been gathered or the legal guardian of that person to relinquish custody and control of the identifying information to the operator of the central storage facility. This raises two potential problems, namely, a reluctance on the part of most people to relinquish personal control of such sensitive information, and the need to have a separate central storage facility for all of the individual packages of information.
Another factor involved in these inventions is the highly technical process in which a computer comparison is made between a database of previously obtained biometric information and biometric information gathered at the point of comparison. An algorithmic vector analysis ensues, reducing unique biometrics from a large number of people into a mathematical essence.
In addition to being prohibitive because of its highly technical nature, the objectives of the biometric identification card can only be met in the presence of the individual to whom the card belongs—a useless feature during a missing person search.
The inclusion of biometric data as used in verification, of itself, does not guarantee such information will be useful in helping humans locate a missing person. For example Sagem Morpho, Inc., a world leader in the field of biometric fingerprint identification, states that the templates generated for use in biometric fingerprint systems cannot be used to recreate an image of the fingerprint required in AFIS (called “criminal” by them) applications. See for example, http://www.morpho.com/products/products_biometric_morphotouchfaq.htm.
Thus biometric fingerprint templates used in verifying individuals from a database are useless to a forensic application in the case of identifing fingerprint image. Part of the reason for this approach, beside the fact that the data is unwieldy to maintain, is the concern that the raw fingerprint data is private to an individual unless that right is given up by the individual or usurped by the State.